The Velveteen Cabbit
by Incantrix
Summary: The classic holiday 'tail' with plenty of cabbit & kawaii like twists!


Disclaimer:  
  
Tenchi Muyo! is the are property of AIC and Pioneer. Tenchi Muyo! and all its characters   
were created by Masaki Kajishima. The Velveteen Rabbit was created by Margery Williams.   
The author of this fan fiction therefore only owns the writings. This copyright is 2001   
under Devin A. Brown.  
  
  
  
  
The Velveteen Cabbit  
by Incantrix  
  
  
There once was a velveteen cabbit, and in the beginning she was really splendid. She was   
as bushy and kawaii as a cabbit should be; her coat was a perfect brown, with front paws   
as white as snow. On her head was a splendid red jewel made of paste, just like other   
cabbits. She had real whiskers, and her ears were lined with silk and pink satin. It   
was Christmas morning when she sat wedged in the top of the boy's stocking, with sprig of   
Jurdain tree between her paws, the effect was charming.  
  
There were other things in the stockings -- nuts and little exotic fruits from Namigi, a   
toy space tree, chocolate almonds, and a clockwork guardian log, but the cabbit was quite   
the best of all. For at least two hours, the little boy played with her, smashing her   
through walls of blocks...   
  
"You're a real cabbit, look at you fly..." The cabbit very much enjoyed herself as she   
played with the boy, even if he was a little bit rough on her brand new velveteen fur.  
  
"Kagato! Your aunts and uncles are here!"  
  
There was a great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels as new visitors   
trounced though the door, and in the excitement of new presents the velveteen cabbit was   
forgotten.   
  
  
  
For a long time she lived in the toy cupboard on the nursery floor, and no one thought   
very much about her. She was naturally a very shy and plain toy, made of velvet and   
cloth, so some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed her. The mechanical toys were   
very superior, and looked down upon everyone else. They were full of modern ideas, and   
pretended they were real. The model Tsunami treeship, with her foldable wings, had lived   
through two seasons and lost most of her paint. She caught the tone from them and never   
missed a moment to put the Velveteen cabbit down.  
  
"It's not as though you can fly! Hah, you can't even move. Now watch for my light-hawk   
wings as I transform!" scoffed Tsunami.  
  
The cabbit could not claim to be a model of anything, for she didn't know that real   
cabbits existed; she thought they were all stuffed with cotton just like herself. She   
understood that cotton was quite commonplace stuff, and should never be mentioned in   
modern circles.   
  
Between them all, the poor little cabbit was made to feel very insignificant and   
inferior, and the only one who was kind to her at all was the Washu Horse.   
  
The Washu Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. She was so old   
that her brown coat was bald in patches and showed the little seams underneath, and most   
of the red flaming hairs in her tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. She   
was wise, for she had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and   
swagger. But eventually their wings would come off and they would never learn, for she   
knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else.   
  
For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, especially on the planet of Jurai, and   
only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Washu Horse   
understand all about it.   
  
"What is real?" asked the cabbit one day, when they were lying side by side on the   
nursery shelf, before Mihoshi came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things move   
and do motion that let you transform? Is it what's inside of me?"   
  
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Washu Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you.   
When a child loves you for a long, long time, and not just to play with and smash through   
blocks, but when he really loves you, then you become real."   
  
"Does it hurt?" asked the inquisitive cabbit.   
  
"Sometimes," said the Washu Horse, for she was always truthful. "But when you are real   
you don't mind being hurt."   
  
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," she asked, "or does it happen bit by   
bit?"   
  
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Washu Horse. "You become. It takes a long   
time. It's not a magical girl transformation. That's why it doesn't happen often to   
toys who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept."  
  
The both of them watched the innocent Kagato, with his light blue pig-tailed hair, smash   
two treeships into each other, their wings breaking and flying apart. The velveteen   
cabbit shuddered.   
  
The old Washu Horse continued. "Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair   
has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very   
shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are real you can't be   
ugly, except to people who don't understand."   
  
"I suppose you're real?" said the cabbit. And then she wished she had not said it, for   
she thought the Washu Horse might be a tad sensitive, not having much red hair anymore.   
But the Washu Horse only smiled as she rocked back and forth.  
  
"Kagato's Uncle made me real," she said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you   
are real you can't become unreal again. It lasts forever."   
  
The cabbit sighed. She thought it would be a long time before this magic called real   
happened to her. She longed to become real, to know what it felt like.   
  
And yet the idea of growing shabby and losing her eyes and whiskers was rather sad. The   
cabbit wished that she could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to   
her. She didn't want to turn out like Washu Horse, all worn out with no hair...  
  
  
  
And so, the days continued. There was a person called Mihoshi who ruled the nursery.   
Sometimes she took no notice of the playthings lying about. "Oh dear, this place is a   
mess! What am I going to do?"  
  
Swooping about like a great wind, the bubby blonde would gather all the playthings in her   
arms, hustling them away into cupboards. She called this "tidying up," and the   
playthings all hated it, especially the metal mechanical ones. The cabbit didn't mind it   
so much, for wherever she was thrown she came down nice and soft.   
  
One evening, when little Kagato was going to bed, she couldn't find the plushie Genius   
that he always slept with. Mihoshi was in a hurry, and it was too much trouble to find   
Genius for Kagato at bedtime, so she simply looked about her, and seeing that the toy   
cupboard stood open, she made a swoop.  
  
"Here," she said, "Take your kawaii cabbit! You can sleep with her!" And she dragged   
the cabbit out by one scruffy ear, and put her into Kagato's arms.   
  
That night, and for many nights after, the velveteen cabbit slept in Kagato's bed. At   
first, she found it uncomfortable, for Kagato hugged her very tight, and sometimes he   
rolled over on her, and sometimes he pushed her so far under the pillow that the cabbit   
could scarcely breathe. And most of all, little Kagato would talk in his sleep. "Where   
is my Genius, I want to hug her..." And the cabbit immediately missed, those long   
moonlight hours in the nursery, when all the house was silent, and her nightly talks with   
the Washu Horse.   
  
But very soon she grew to like it, for Kagato started to talk to her, and made nice   
tunnels for her under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrows real cabbits   
lived in. And they had splendid games together, in whispers, when Mihoshi had gone away   
to her dinner and left them together.   
  
"What fun games we play," said little Kagato, "when we take down Tsunami! We will surely   
take over the whole universe tomorrow!" And when Kagato dropped off to sleep, the cabbit   
would snuggle down close under his little warm chin and dream, with Kagato's hands   
clasped close round her all night long.   
  
And so time went on, and the little cabbit was very happy--so happy that she never   
noticed how her beautiful velveteen fur was getting shabbier and shabbier, and her little   
bushy brown tail had become unsown, and all the pink rubbed off her nose where Kagato had   
kissed her after his great imaginary victories.   
  
Spring came, and they had long days in the garden, for wherever Kagato went the cabbit   
went as well. She had rides in the wheelbarrow as they pretended to fly in space,   
picnics on the grass, and lovely subspace labs built for her under the raspberry canes   
behind the flower border.   
  
And once, when little Kagato was called away suddenly to go to tea, the cabbit was left   
out on the lawn until long after dusk, and Mihoshi had to come and look for him because   
Kagato couldn't go to sleep unless she was there. She was wet through and through with   
dew and quite earthy from diving into the burrows Kagato had made for her in the   
flowerbeds. Mihoshi grumbled as she rubbed the cabbit off with a corner of her apron.  
  
"You have to have your old cabbit!" she said. " Stop crying over some stuffed plushie!"   
  
"Give me my cabbit!" he said. "You mustn't say that. She isn't a toy. She a fighting   
cabbit! She's REAL!"   
  
When the little cabbit heard that, she was happy, for she knew what the Washu Horse said   
was true at last. The nursery magic had happened to her, and she was a toy no longer.   
She was real. She was a real cabbit. Kagato himself had said it.   
  
That night she was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in her little   
cotton heart that it almost burst. And into her pearly-white eyes, that had long ago   
lost their polish, there came a look of wisdom and beauty, so that even Mihoshi noticed   
it next morning when she picked her up and said, "Gee, this cabbit looks like it knows   
something important!"   
  
  
  
And what a wonderful summer it was!   
  
Near the house where they lived there was a forest, and in the long June evenings little   
Kagato liked to go there after lunch to play. He took the velveteen cabbit with him, and   
before he wandered off to pick wild carrots for his cabbit, Kagato always made her a   
little nest somewhere among the bushes, where she would be quite cozy and able to ambush   
the enemy.  
  
One evening, while the cabbit was lying there alone, watching the ants that ran to and   
fro between her velvet paws, she saw two strange beings creep out of the tall grasses   
near her. They were cabbits like herself, but quite furry and brand new. They must have   
been very well made, for their seams didn't show at all, and they changed shape in a   
queer way when they moved. One minute they were long and thin and the next minute fat   
and bunchy instead of always staying the same like she did. Their feet padded softly on   
the ground, and they crept quite close to her, twitching their noses.   
  
Meanwhile, she looked hard to see which side the battery cover was, for she knew that the   
moving cabbits generally have something to keep them fed. But she couldn't see it.   
These were evidently a new kind of cabbit altogether.   
  
They stared at her, and the little cabbit stared back. And all this time, their noses   
twitched.   
  
"I'm Mazoku-ohki, the kawaii evil one. That's Tux-ohki over there. Why don't you get up   
and play with us?" he asked. "We love to cause mischief."  
  
"I don't feel like it," said the cabbit, for she didn't want to explain that she had no   
batteries and was only made of cotton on the inside.  
  
"Ho!" said the furry cabbit. "It's as easy as anything," as he gave a big hop sideways   
and stood on his hind legs.   
  
"I don't believe you can!" exclaimed Tux-ohki.  
  
"I can!" said the little cabbit. "I can jump higher than anything." She meant when   
little Kagato threw her into the air, but of course she didn't want to say so.   
  
"Can you hop on your hind legs?" asked Mazoku-ohki.   
  
That was a dreadful question, for the velveteen cabbit had no hind legs at all! The back   
of her was made all in one piece, almost like a pincushion. She sat still in the straw   
burrow, and hoped that the other cabbit wouldn't notice.  
  
"I don't want to!" she said again.   
  
But wild cabbits have very sharp eyes. And Tux-ohki stretched out his neck and looked.   
  
"She hasn't got any hind legs," he called out. "Fancy a cabbit without any hind legs!"   
And he began to laugh.   
  
"I have!" cried the little cabbit, quite flustered at the moment. "I have got hind legs!   
I am sitting on them."   
  
"Then show me, like this!" said Mazoku-ohki. And he began to whirl around and dance,   
till the little plushie cabbit got quite dizzy.   
  
"I don't like dancing," she said. "I'd rather sit still!"   
  
But all the time she was longing to dance, for a funny new tickly feeling ran through   
her, she felt she would give anything in the world to be able to jump about like these   
wild cabbits did.   
  
The strange cabbit stopped dancing, and came quite close. Mazoku-ohki came so close this   
time that his long whiskers brushed the velveteen cabbit's ear, and then he wrinkled his   
nose suddenly and flattened his ears and jumped backwards.   
  
"She doesn't smell right!" he exclaimed. "She isn't a cabbit at all! She isn't real!"   
  
"I am real!" said the little cabbit. "I am real! Kagato said so!" And she nearly   
began to cry.   
  
"I don't know, Mazoku-ohki." Tux-ohki had a sorry look on his furry face. "She just   
doesn't seem very real to me. And no, she doesn't look like she's carrying   
cabbitkins...speaking of which..."  
  
Just then, there was a sound of footsteps as Kagato ran past near them. With a stamp of   
their paws and a flash of their white tails the two strange cabbits disappeared.   
  
"Come back and play with me!" called the little cabbit. "Please come back! I know I am   
real!"   
  
But there was no answer; the two wild cabbits were gone. The velveteen cabbit was all   
alone.   
  
She thought, "Why did they run away like that? Why couldn't they stop and talk to me?"   
  
For a long time she lay very still, hoping that the other cabbits would come back. But   
they never returned as the sun sank lower. By the time the little white moths fluttered   
out, little Kagato had come and carried her home.   
  
Weeks passed, and the little cabbit grew very old and shabby, but Kagato loved her just   
as much. He loved her so hard that he loved all her whiskers off, and the pink lining to   
her ears turned gray, and her paws were no longer as white as freshly fallen snow. She   
even began to lose her shape, turning all puffy like a used marshmallow.   
  
She scarcely looked like a cabbit any more, except to little Kagato. To him, she was   
always his companion on their imaginary attack runs, and that was all that the little   
cabbit cared about. He didn't mind how she looked to other people, because the magic had   
made her real, and when you are real, looks don't matter.   
  
  
  
And then, one day, little Kagato fell ill.  
  
Strange people came and went in the nursery, and lights were on all night. Through it   
all the little velveteen cabbit lay there, hidden from sight under the bedclothes. She   
never stirred, for she was afraid that if they found her, some onesomeone might take her   
away, and she knew that Kagato needed her.  
  
It was a long weary time, for little Kagato was too ill to play, and the little cabbit   
found it rather dull with nothing to do all day long. But she snuggled down patiently,   
and looked forward to the time when Kagato would be well again, and they would go out in   
the garden and play pirate like they used to. All sorts of delightful things she   
planned. While Kagato lay dizzy and feverish and half asleep, she crept up close to his   
pillow and whispered plans and strategies into his ear.   
  
And the fever turned for the better. Little Kagato was able to sit up in bed and look at   
his picture books, while the little cabbit cuddled close to his side. And one day, they   
let him get up and get out of his room.   
  
It was a bright sunny morning, and the windows stood wide open. Mihoshi had carried   
Kagato out on the balcony, wrapped in a blanket, and the little cabbit lay tangled up   
among the bedclothes, thinking.   
  
Kagato was going to the seaside planet tomorrow. Everything was arranged, and now it   
only remained to carry out the doctor's orders. They talked about it while the little   
cabbit lay under the bedclothes, with just her head peeping out while she listened. The   
room was to be disinfected, and all the books and toys that Kagato had played with in bed   
must be disintegrated.   
  
"Hurrah!" thought the cabbit. "Tomorrow we shall go to Mirani, the seaside planet!" For   
Kagato had often talked of Mirani, and he wanted very much to see the beaches, with its   
big waves and tiny crabs that Kagato would track down and crush with sticks, and the sand   
castles that he would pretend were ancient ruins and destroy.  
  
Just then, Mihoshi caught sight of her. "How about his old cabbit?" she asked.   
  
"That?" said Dr. Clay. "Why, it's a mass of Romulask germs! Disintegrate it at once."   
  
"What? He'll be crushed!"   
  
"Nonsense! Get him a new one. He mustn't have that any more!"  
  
And so the little cabbit was put into a sack with the old picture books and a lot of   
rubbish, and carried out to the end of the garden behind the house. It was a fine place   
to put it, for Tenchi the gardener was too busy just then to take to sacks to the   
disintegration center on the other side of the city. He had the carrots to dig and   
Jurdain trees to prune, but next morning he promised to come early and ship out the whole   
lot.  
  
That night, Kagato slept in a different bedroom, and he had a new cabbit to sleep with   
him. It was a splendid cabbit, all white plush with real glass eyes, but Kagato was too   
excited to care very much about it. For tomorrow he was going to the seaside planet, and   
that in itself was such a wonderful thing that he could think of nothing else.   
  
And while Kagato was asleep, dreaming of Mirani and its wonderful beaches, the little   
cabbit lay among the old picture books in the corner outside the house feeling very   
lonely. The sack had been left untied, and so by wiggling a bit, she was able to get her   
head through the opening and look out. Shivering, for she had always been used to   
sleeping in a comfy bed, and by this time her coat had worn so thin and threadbare from   
hugging that it no longer offered her any protection.   
  
Nearby she could see the bushes of raspberry canes, growing tall and close like a   
tropical jungle, in whose shadows she had played with Kagato on previous mornings. She   
thought of those long sunlit hours in the garden and how happy they were, and a great   
sadness came over her.   
  
The memories seemed to pass right before her eyes, of the quiet evenings in the wood when   
she lay hiding and playing, letting the little ants ran over her paws.  
  
She thought of Washu Horse, so wise and gentle, and all that she had told her. But what   
use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become real if it all ended like this?   
  
And a tear as real as it could be trickled down her little scruffy velvety nose and fell   
to the ground softly.   
  
Then a strange thing happened. For where the tear had fallen, a miniature tree grew out   
of the ground, with a mysterious flower on the top, unlike any in the garden. It had   
delicate and slender green leaves the color of emeralds, and in the center of the leaves   
was a blossom like a golden cup. It was so beautiful that the little cabbit could dare   
not say a word, for she just watched it blossoming before her eyes. As it opened, it   
released a fairy.   
  
She was quite the loveliest of fairies in the whole universe. Her dress was of galaxies   
strung together like pearls, there were leaves round her neck and in her hair, and her   
face was like the most perfect flower of all. And she came close to the little cabbit   
and gathered her up into her arms and kissed her on her velveteen nose that was all damp   
from tearing.   
  
"Little cabbit," she said, "don't you know who I am?" Her blue within blue eyes   
sparkled.  
  
The velveteen cabbit looked up at her, and it seemed that she had seen her before, but   
she couldn't think where.   
  
"I am the nursery magic fairy, Tokimi," she said. "I take care of all the playthings   
that children have loved. When they are old and worn out, and the children don't need   
them any more, then I come and take them away with me and turn them into real."   
  
"Wasn't I real before?" asked the little cabbit.   
  
"You were real to Kagato, that mischievous boy," Tokimi said, "because he loved you. Now   
you shall be real to every one."   
  
And she held the little cabbit close in her arms and flew with her deep into the woods.   
  
It was light now, for the glorious full moon had risen. All the forest was beautiful,   
and the still lakes reflected the glowing moonlight like magic mirrors.   
  
And in the open field between the trees, wild cabbits danced with their shadows on the   
velvet grass around a campfire, huddling around their pick of carrots from the previous   
day. But when they saw the Fairy Tokimi, they all stopped dancing and stood around in a   
ring to greet her.   
  
"I've brought you a new friend tonight," Tokimi said. "You must be very kind to her and   
teach her all she needs to know to be a wild cabbit, for she is going to live with you!"   
  
And she kissed the little cabbit again and put her down on the grass.   
  
"Run and play, little cabbit!" she said.   
  
But the little cabbit sat quite still for a moment and never moved. For when she saw all   
the wild cabbits dancing around her, she suddenly remembered about her hind legs, and she   
didn't want them to see that she was made all in one piece. What she didn't know was   
that when Tokimi kissed her that last time, she had changed her altogether.   
  
And she might have sat there a long time too shy to move, if just then something hadn't   
tickled her nose. Before she thought what she was doing, she lifted her hind toe to   
scratch it.  
  
And she found that she actually had hind legs! Instead of dingy velveteen, she had brown   
fur, soft and shiny, her ears twitched by themselves as they plopped naturally, and her   
whiskers were so long that they brushed the grass. And her forehead jewel! It was real!  
  
She gave one leap and the joy of using those hind legs was so great that she went   
springing about the grass with them, jumping sideways and whirling round as the others   
did, and she grew so excited that when at last she did stop to look back for Tokimi, she   
was gone.  
  
"Hey!" exclaimed Mazoku-ohki, "you're a cabbit! Look at you go!"   
  
She was a real cabbit at last, at home with the other cabbits.   
  
  
  
Autumn passed as well as winter. And in the spring, when the days grew warm and sunny,   
Kagato went out to play in the woods behind the house. While he was playing, two cabbits   
crept out from the woods to peak a look at him.   
  
One of them was black all over, but the other had a familiar pattern to her fur, with the   
most perfect snowy white paws. And that little soft nose and round back eyes were so   
familiar that Kagato thought to himself, "Why, she looks just like my old cabbit plushie   
that was lost when I had Romulask fever!"   
  
But Kagato never knew that it really was his own cabbit, coming back to look at the child   
who had first helped her to be real.  
  
  
---  
  
Thank you all for reading my 'tail.' And thanx Dark Jezter for the preread of this   
fict, and a big *huggle* to EAG for the proofreading. Yea EAG!  
  
Incantrix - incantrix@dreamclouds.com 


End file.
